Who is in and who is out?

[Rhossydd]

and stand absolutely by every word I wrote

But have no evidence what so ever to counter the majority of world opinion that leaving the EU would be a bad idea.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The majority of the world? I have yet to come across anyone of that opinion without a vested interest.

 

[Rhossydd]

I have yet to come across anyone of that opinion without a vested interest.

Everyone in the UK has a vested interest in this referendum, although some might not have grasped the implications to their own lives yet. We all stand to loose out, some very badly.
Of course the leaders of the leave campaign are all so wealthy that if they succeed and are wrong about the possible financial benefits they won't actually endure any actual hardship if their wealth halves or worse.
Are you that financially secure that you have no risk to financial hardship if the worst happens ?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Likewise the leaders of the remain campaign - they do very nicely thank you, with their cheap Polish plumbers, Spanish maids and gardeners and so on. The EU financially is going to hell in a handcart - why presume GB will do worse outside?

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There are many theories as to why the industrial revolution started in Britain - but I would note that at the start of the 19th century:

- Britain ruled the waves
- Had the huge economic benefit of an empire
- Which kick-started banking and other financial services
- Was a coherent whole (and had been for 100 years) rather than competing independent states
- Germany had yet to be unified (1861)
- The French revolution shortly followed by Napoleon and later the Franco Prussian wars

There may have been a less regulatory culture in the UK (impossible to judge), but the pre-requisites for the UK to make the most of the technical advances (money, education, political stability, entrepreneurial culture) were all in place.

 

[Jacob]

One thing you can be sure of is that the "success" of the British Empire wasn't due to the rest of the world being "over regulated".
In fact if anything quite the opposite - have a look at some of the regulations concerning the Navy 18/19C; minutely detailed specifications down to the number of stitches per inch in sail canvas and the colour of the thread. Pepys writes about it - it was his job.
We gained the empire just like the romans before - by tight organisation and obsessive regulation of every detail possible.
Thar's power in them thar regulations, make no mistake!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

There are many theories as to why the industrial revolution started in Britain - but I would note that at the start of the 19th century:

- Britain ruled the waves
- Had the huge economic benefit of an empire
- Which kick-started banking and other financial services
- Was a coherent whole (and had been for 100 years) rather than competing independent states
- Germany had yet to be unified (1861)
- The French revolution shortly followed by Napoleon and later the Franco Prussian wars

There may have been a less regulatory culture in the UK (impossible to judge), but the pre-requisites for the UK to make the most of the technical advances (money, education, political stability, entrepreneurial culture) were all in place.

Terry - those are consequences of the Industrial Revolution, not causes.

Opinions vary when the IR started, though significant events were Newcomen's atmospheric engine (1712), Watt's improvements to it (1769), Abraham Darby smelting iron with coke rather than charcoal (1709) and the various developments in Lancashire around cotton spinning and weaving in the 18th century. All these things happened because there was a demand - more coal was needed, requiring deeper mines, needing better means of drainage.

A factor in this was attitude to religion. In the 18th century, only members of the CofE were permitted in positions of authority - military officers, MPs, judges, the clergy - leaving Nonconformists with little option of advancement except through commerce. A critical factor was that they were left alone to get on with it, and not in any way officially hampered or persecuted. Also, the development of mills and factories happened in great part because they paid better wages than could be had by working independently - people went into paid work through choice, not coercion. Part of the reason for their seeking higher wages was the gradual development of a consumer society - there were things they could spend their money on, and a slow development of shops in which they could spend their money. An early 19th century mill worker was better off than an agricultural smallholder doing a bit of hand-weaving on the side.

England at the end of the 17th century was a reasonably prosperous country, its prosperity built on wool. It had endured the horror of civil war, and the increasingly authoritarian Cromwellian 'Commonwealth'. By the time Parliament invited Charles II to retake the throne in 1660, everyone was heartily sick of overbearing government, the reaction being a far more libertarian attitude to government that lasted, in general spirit at least, until the present - legislate or regulate if experience shows it to be necessary, otherwise leave alone. It was in this political atmosphere that commerce, and innovation, was able to thrive - and thus Britain ended up 'ruling the waves' in the 19th century, because people had been free to get on with things in the late 17th and 18th.

The parallels with today are that the UK generally stills holds the view that legislation and regulation should only be applied if found necessary, where the EU approach is based on the Continental tradition that every human activity should be regulated for the common good. Earlier in the thread, I gave some examples of why this makes a difference. Each little regulation in itself makes little difference to the overall economy, but collectively, they very definitely do.

I repeat - the UK would be a more prosperous country away from the dead hand of Brussels regulations.


Edit to add - I really ought to mention Cornishman Richard Trevithick (another Nonconformist!), the father of the high-pressure steam engine (late 18th century) and the first workable railway locomotive (1804), which George Stephenson later developed. Trevithick developed his interest in improving the existing steam engines to improve those used for draining Cornish mines - a well-established and developed industry in Cornwall in the late 18th century. (Indeed, among the many places claiming to be the cradle of the industrial revolution - Manchester, Coalbrookdale, Birmingham, Newcastle - Cornwall has a fair shout; it was the need to import coal for pumping engines that drove steady increases in engine efficiency in the late 18th and early 19th century.)

Another towering figure, less well known, is Henry Maudslay, the father of accurate machine tools (1790s) and the man who trained some of the greatest names in mechanical engineering of the early 19th century (Naysmith, Whitworth, Roberts, etc).

 

[Rhossydd]

why presume GB will do worse outside?

Because every credible financial projection says so.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

why presume GB will do worse outside?

Because every credible financial projection says so.

All made by 'economic forecasters' with a long history of getting it wrong. They forecast that the Eurozone would lead to growth - wrong. They all forecast that the UK would be poorer ouside the Euro (that was wrong), none of them predicted the 2008 crash, the IMF forecast that Osborne's 'austerity' approach to the UK economy would lead to recession (Lagarde had the grace to admit they got that wrong). Treasury three-month forecasts always have to be revised after six weeks.

Why on earth does anybody take economic forecasts seriously? Their record of accuracy is absolutely abysmal. The fact that all the big economic forecasters suggest we'd be better off in is pretty much an absolute guarantee we'd be better off out, going by their past record!

 

[Rhossydd]

Why on earth does anybody take economic forecasts seriously?

Because they're the best source of information we have. There might be an element of doubt if there were a huge range of variability in the projections, but there isn't. It's all negative.

Have you ever seen a forecast that credibly suggests that we'd all be better off out of the EU ? I haven't.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Why on earth does anybody take economic forecasts seriously?

Because they're the best source of information we have. There might be an element of doubt if there were a huge range of variability in the projections, but there isn't. It's all negative.

Have you ever seen a forecast that credibly suggests that we'd all be better off out of the EU ? I haven't.

Yes - the lessons of history. I've tried to set out some of them in this thread and others. History shows that countries with active democracies and light-touch regulation do far better economically than less democratic, more 'managed' economies, and end up more prosperous and freer. Examples - America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain between the civil war and now, Germany after WW2. I can think of no examples of countries that have prospered so well under managed economies - even China has had to become far more liberal in it's attitude to commerce (would that it would in other aspects of life!).

 

[Eric The Viking]

Why on earth does anybody take economic forecasts seriously?

Because they're the best source of information we have. There might be an element of doubt if there were a huge range of variability in the projections, but there isn't. It's all negative.

Have you ever seen a forecast that credibly suggests that we'd all be better off out of the EU ? I haven't.

Here are examples from a number of leading economists:

Prof. Patrick Minford:
Should Britain Leave the EU? (2005 ed.) (2015 edition on Amazon)
http://www.patrickminford.net/ (home page, including links to specific papers)

Prof. Tim Congdon:
http://getbritainout.org/prof-tim-congdon-cbe-serious-flaws-in-the-treasurys-analysis-of-eu-costs/ as is obvious this is a rebuttal to the recent Treasury analysis. Prof. Congdon has published a lot of work in recent years on the subject.

Dr. Ruth Lea
http://politeia.co.uk/blog/open-letter-sir-mike-rake-dr-ruth-lea Rebuttal of 'remain' arguments in the form of a letter to the CBI.
http://www.arbuthnotgroup.com/economic_perspectives_group.html Analysis blog for Arbuthnot (not specifically EU-related).
http://www.cityam.com/234438/ignore-eu-scaremongers-why-britain-would-thrive-post-brexit
Biography here

I have yet to see a Remain economic assessment that doesn't depend on a hubristically gloomy view of global realpolitik.

But for me the argument doesn't hinge on economics but on personal and national freedom, and the nature of the superstate we are presently part of. It has shown time and again that it cannot be reformed, and that it regards taxpayer money as a self-preservation fund.

It is a proven economic disaster area -- for those who want to trust IMF and think-tank "must stay in" propaganda, just remember all those luminaries here supporting the Euro: Heseltine, Clarke, Mandelson, Blair, Brown (in the early stages), umpteen 'captains' of industry', Eddie Izzard (who?), the travel companies, big banks, the Treasury (behind the scenes), and so on.

Anyone who did basic macroeconomics at University (as I did) could clearly see the dangers, and dangerous it has proved: trashed economies in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece; threats to the solvency of lending banks; mass unemployment. It's quite possible the migration crisis will tip things over into societal breakdown in Greece and other places, but the undermining of the foundations has been the euro debacle.

Cancelling the euro means admitting failure, and rolling back the Project of superstate creation. It is politically impossible for European politicians - Merkel, Tusk, the Eurocrats, Lagarde, et al, - to do this as it indicates their policies won't work. Truth is, the euro DAMAGES rather than helps European economies, and has almost killed several.

How much more evidence do you need? At a rally in Bristol yesterday, Liam Fox, former Defence Secretary, pointed out we should be warning of the dangers of staying in, not rebutting the "risks" of leaving. He's right.

In any financial bubble (and subsequent crash) those who survive are those who escape early. You can't, but imagine asking George Frederic Handel about the South Sea bubble

The EU won't end well, and that is probably not too far away - the pressures on the eurozone are already too extreme and still growing. If we are sensible we should ensure we're not 'in' when the end finally happens.

E.

 

[Jacob]

Why on earth does anybody take economic forecasts seriously?

Because they're the best source of information we have. There might be an element of doubt if there were a huge range of variability in the projections, but there isn't. It's all negative.

Have you ever seen a forecast that credibly suggests that we'd all be better off out of the EU ? I haven't.

Yes - the lessons of history. I've tried to set out some of them in this thread and others. History shows that countries with active democracies and light-touch regulation do far better economically than less democratic, more 'managed' economies, and end up more prosperous and freer. Examples - America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain between the civil war and now, Germany after WW2. I can think of no examples of countries that have prospered so well under managed economies - even China has had to become far more liberal in it's attitude to commerce (would that it would in other aspects of life!).

Completely the opposite.

The various empires or successful nations which have come and gone have succeeded on the basis of centralised power, tight rule and regulation, bureaucracy and so on. Often with slavery and enforced cheap labour, and in the colonies you mention; the domination and/or extermination of native populations.

The industrial revolution developed out of discovering how things could be done then becoming how things should be done, with codes of practice, standards imposed, research and development largely centrally funded, and so on.
We now have the neo-liberal experiment quite obviously failing all around us with the collapse of American and UK industry and the rise of poverty.

Whether or not we want to be successful on the basis of centralised power is another question - but democracy can be powerful without being tyrannical and with the development of technology we don't need a slavery and cheap labour as in previous eras.
And centralised power looks like the only way we will deal with climate change, which is in the process of disrupting everything, worldwide, very quickly.

 

[Jacob]

a hubristically gloomy view of global realpolitik.

:lol: nice turn of phrase!

 

[Eric The Viking]

... The various empires or successful nations which have come and gone have succeeded on the basis of centralised power, tight rule and regulation, bureaucracy and so on.

You might want to take a look at the Roman empire. Edward Gibbon's six volumes would be a good place to start. Honestly, anything by Mary Beard would be an easier read/watch though.

You may get rather a shock.

 

[Jacob]

Have recently been reading both. Gibbon is an easy read BTW which is why it was so popular, but it's long!

Think of the Roman road. No free-thinking head scratching going on there, no rolling roads of England!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Completely the opposite.

The various empires or successful nations which have come and gone have succeeded on the basis of centralised power, tight rule and regulation, bureaucracy and so on. Often with slavery and enforced cheap labour, and in the colonies you mention; the domination and/or extermination of native populations.

The industrial revolution developed out of discovering how things could be done then becoming how things should be done, with codes of practice, standards imposed, research and development largely centrally funded, and so on.
We now have the neo-liberal experiment quite obviously failing all around us with the collapse of American and UK industry and the rise of poverty.

Whether or not we want to be successful on the basis of centralised power is another question - but democracy can be powerful without being tyrannical and with the development of technology we don't need a slavery and cheap labour as in previous eras.
And centralised power looks like the only way we will deal with climate change, which is in the process of disrupting everything, worldwide, very quickly.

Jacob - it's hilarious the way you re-write history and desperately try to prove that black is really white! The collapse of American and UK industry and the rise of poverty? Which economies are doing better - the Eurozone, or the US and UK? Who are better off at the moment, Britons or Greeks? Who on earth is suggesting a return to slave labour?

 

[Jacob]

..... Who on earth is suggesting a return to slave labour?

Nobody - but that (plus colonisation) what largely sustained the development of all the nations mentioned by CC above, including the UK.
But workers rights have been chiselled away at in the UK and wealth has been distributed rapidly upwards. We are all waiting for the trickle down effect to start.
The EU is strong on workers rights and protection which is one of the strongest reasons for staying in.

 

[Eric The Viking]

a hubristically gloomy view of global realpolitik.

:lol: nice turn of phrase!

I mean they're sticking their necks out spouting gloomy nonsense in the hope nobody will call them out on it.

Sadly (for them) Tim Congdon has fired a pretty accurate salvo (see earlier post for links).

The reality is:

(1) We trade at a steadily growing loss with our other EU "partners". It has been like this for decades, not weeks or months. If we were a business operating that way, we would have been bust long ago.

(2) For EU companies and countries we are cheap and profitable to do business with, because (a) we're close by, so physical goods cost less to send here, (b) the exchange rate benefits them, and (c) we have no protectionist measures in place to prevent dumping, etc. Contrast us, for example, with the 'fun' they have doing business with China. The car companies are opening up their own plants on the Chinese mainland, simply because direct exports are so hard (so are we). The point is, though, do you want a Merc or a BMW built to the quality standards prevailing in Bavaria or Shanghai? And a Chinese plant isn't doing anything for unemployment in Portugal...

(3) There are places like New Zealand and Australlia who would be pleased to return to good trading relationships - remember New Zealand lamb and butter from the 1960s? When we joined the EEC in 1972, we immediately imposed protectionist barriers (in compliance with CAP-related policies), and almost destroyed their lamb and dairy industries (we had been one of their biggest export markets). They were forced to introduce Halal abattoirs and export to the Middle East. I'll admit we have fences to mend, but we would be quite free to apologise, as a start!

(4) Even the stats on EU trade have been bent for years. Because of containerization, much of our export trade to the rest of the world goes through Rotterdam and Hamburg (I think Hamburg, definitely Rotterdam). Under EU rules, even though it's in transit, it's counted as trade with other EU countries (and then, presumably, counted again as Dutch or German exports to the rest of the world!). This is significant enough to have become known as "the Rotterdam effect" (Google it). So our trade deficit with the rest of the EU is actually worse than it first appears.

The ONS attempted to get a handle on this in 2014, but admitted it had to make educated guesses because of the way the real-world data were collected and processed by the EU. The stark 2013 numbers were these:
Official UK exports to the rest of the EU: £154.6bn
Official UK-to-EU, minus The Netherlands: £128.4bn
That's actually too big a chunk off the top - they admit they can't get a proper figure in the linked article - but the fact remains, when you hear Remain (or the institutions wading in to prop up its arguments) say we have healthy exports to the EU, it IS a lie.

. . .

I'm really supposed to be doing something more constructive this morning. Jacob, stop waving red rags at me!


E.

 

[finneyb]

Here are examples from a number of leading economists:

Prof. Patrick Minford:
Should Britain Leave the EU? (2005 ed.) (2015 edition on Amazon)
http://www.patrickminford.net/ (home page, including links to specific papers)

Prof. Tim Congdon:
http://getbritainout.org/prof-tim-congdon-cbe-serious-flaws-in-the-treasurys-analysis-of-eu-costs/ as is obvious this is a rebuttal to the recent Treasury analysis. Prof. Congdon has published a lot of work in recent years on the subject.

Dr. Ruth Lea
http://politeia.co.uk/blog/open-letter-sir-mike-rake-dr-ruth-lea Rebuttal of 'remain' arguments in the form of a letter to the CBI.
http://www.arbuthnotgroup.com/economic_perspectives_group.html Analysis blog for Arbuthnot (not specifically EU-related).
http://www.cityam.com/234438/ignore-eu-scaremongers-why-britain-would-thrive-post-brexit
Biography here

Those three would make Trump look left wing.

Brian